


Waking Dreams

by rabbitheartbeats



Series: Ink and Quill [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: ALL THE SPOILERS, Angst, F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Fluff, Idiots Pining, Idiots in Love, Pining, Post-Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers, Romance, Spoiilers for EVERYTHING, Spoilers for Job Quests, Spoilers for Sidequests, Xaela WoL
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27895825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitheartbeats/pseuds/rabbitheartbeats
Summary: It is a little annoying, being trapped in a dying world with the fate of two riding on your shoulders, but made all the worse when you keep dreaming about that stupid boy who broke your heart half a decade ago.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Series: Ink and Quill [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1465468
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

Her heart is hammering away in her chest as she makes her way to where she’s going to be staying for the next few days. 

Twelve, you would think that she was heading in to face the Lord of the Inferno with how her pulse races and her palms sweat!

She had not been terribly surprised by the apologetic announcement from Rammbroes that there wasn’t enough space at the Find for her. The Sons of Saint Coinach’s camp is in a precarious enough position as it is, and trying to expand is asking for trouble with the sheer number of gigas that roam the ruins.

The announcement that she was to share a tent with the other recent newcomer, G’raha Tia - Baldesion scholar and incredibly handso- _annoying_ \- incredibly annoying errand setter should not have rattled her as it has. 

She had been set on hating the man’s guts for the whole aethersand business. She should. Just on principle. 

Instead she is stuck with this incomprehensible nervousness about sharing a tent with him.

He is technically a stranger, she tries to reason her apprehension away. People get nervous around strangers. Except the excuse rings hollow in her horns as she has stayed in close quarters with multiple strangers over the years and G’raha was the least threatening of them all. 

She can’t even use the excuse of G’raha being a man for her jitters. She had shared beds and bedrolls with all sorts. Inn rooms weren’t always cheap and while the Captain was usually kind enough to sleep on the floor, she had piled in with T’chev, Randal and the rest of the Quills on more than one occasion. And that wasn’t even getting into her cramped sleeping accommodations aboard the _Ahriman_. 

Worse still was that her nervousness had clearly been visible, given the concerned look Cid had given her. 

The Ironworks President had offered to let her stay with him and his other employees, except she knows for a fact that their tent would be cramped enough as is with a Garlean, a Roegadyn and a Lalafell in it. Adding an admittedly short Auri girl would be pushing that tent’s capacity well beyond its limits. 

It would be just like camping with the Quills. More luxurious even! It would just be her and G’raha in a tent, no snoring Lalafells or Hyurs who yelled or kicked in their sleep. 

Oh gods. It was just going to be the two of them in the tent.

A quick glance at the tent's interior draws a sigh of relief. He’s not here, though he has managed to cover more than half of their shared space with his things in absolutely no time at all. There is a sizable pile of books and paper strewn over what was likely his cot.

Making her way towards what she figured was her portion of the tent, she stops at the sight of one of the open books. An illustration of the Crystal Tower covers a good portion of a page and she finds herself entranced, and she sets her pack down before moving over to take a better look. The illustration is beautifully done, and there are notes and arrows written in an exactingly neat hand in the margins.

Her hands hover over the old and almost delicate looking pages. Unsure if it was safe to turn the page. Loetstymm always said she didn’t know how to treat a book right, and she had been scolded more than once for how she handled grimoires.

“Ah, interested in the Tower’s history are you?”

She starts at the voice behind her and whirls around to see the handsome red-headed Miqo’te standing behind her, a slight smile on his face, and her stomach is doing flips at the sight. She panics briefly at the thought that her evening meal might be coming back up. Cid had made sandwiches - she should have known that that black spot had been mold and not grease stains like she had thought!

“I… I don’t know much about the Allagan Empire,” she admits as she quickly returns her gaze towards the book, her stomach settling somewhat. “Just that the Captain always got excited whenever we’d find some of their old coins out and about.”

“Well,” G’raha Tia says as he sits himself down next to her, the skin of her neck _burning._ He can't possibly have noticed with how her hair covers her neck - besides she has scales there too. There is no way he can see how she sweats. She _really_ shouldn't have had that sixth serving. “You’re free to read through the tomes I have on the subject if it pleases you.”

He’s rummaging through his belongings for something and Moxi finds her eyes following his movements, tracing the lines of the tattoos on his neck and following the curves of his muscles down to the collar of the plain cotton tunic he has on presently. He is on the leaner side, but the muscles in his arms tell her that the Miqo’te did not spend all of his time reading books.

“Hm?” his head tilting slightly, mismatched eyes inquisitive and curious as his ears twitch the same way T’chev and Sela’s do when surprised or concerned. “Is there something on my face?”

“N-No!” Champion of Eorzea, slayer of Garlemald’s Black Wolf and destroyer of false gods stammers. “Just looking! I mean! I just- I - thanks for letting me look at your books!” 

She promptly sets about making herself look busy in setting up her own things, pulling out every single blanket she owns and dumping it on her cot. She chances a glance back to see G’raha staring at her like she is some sort of strange creature and she dives into her pile of blankets to hide her rapidly reddening face.

* * *

The Pendants room is infuriatingly nice. The Warrior of Light buries her face into the ridiculously soft pillow and inhales sharply. Of course that would be what she dreamt about. Of course it would be that memory that would come to mind.

Her life has only gotten increasingly ridiculous since stepping off that boat in Limsa Lominsa, and now here she rests, facedown on a bed in another world in a city that had sprung up around the base of the Crystal Tower. The very-same Crystal Tower that she had explored what feels like a lifetime ago - if the Exarch was to be believed in how he had summoned it and her through time and space to the First. 

The Tower had been sealed. She had checked. Every day until duty had called her away from Mor Dhona, and then at least once a year afterwards. 

For doors that not even the strength of the Warrior of Light could force to yield - for them to simply _open_ like they were any other door upset her terribly.

She hadn’t been able to stop herself from asking the instant the Exarch had mentioned that he had made his office within.

‘ _Just like that? … Then G’raha Tia is… ?’_

She winces a little at the memory of the desperation in her voice as she had asked. She hadn’t missed the slight tensing of the Exarch’s fingers - spoken and crystal both at her words. But his denial of having found her long lost Allagan Prince within the Tower had torn open old wounds she had thought long healed.

Speaking of old wounds - her ghostly visitor. Ardbert. The Warrior of Light from another world who had walked the road of a hero to the bitter end for the sake of his home. A home she now stood in and had been asked to save by its current protector. 

The Crystal Exarch the current master of the Crystal Tower and summoner of her and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. She wasn’t sure what to think of the soft-spoken man. Was she suspicious? Seven hells, of course she was. But she wanted to trust him. 

Something about him was so incredibly familiar. Walking a half pace behind him as he escorted her through his city, explaining the sights had provoked a vaguely familiar fluttering feeling in her chest, and she could not help but smile as he spoke. 

She pushes her face further into the pillow, heedless of the damage her horns are dealing to the fabric and the way her tail lashes about.

It didn’t make sense. The only way she knew of to open and operate the Crystal Tower was to wield the Allagan eye. The Exarch had said he was not sure from when he had summoned the Tower, only that it had been empty and there had been no G’raha Tia within when he had entered.

Given that when she and NOAH had first opened the doors to Syrcus Tower they had awakened and then subsequently slain the Tower’s occupants, she could safely say that the Exarch had not summoned the structure from her past. 

He would have had to have brought it from her future. From a future where G’raha Tia was no longer sealed inside. A future where G’raha Tia, the first boy she ever loved, who had ever made her heart race and flutter, was awake and very much alive. 

She hopes… She hopes that G’raha had awoken to a bright and brilliant world by the future descendants of the Sons of Saint Coinach and Ironworks. She hopes that he had made friends in that far-off future. Well of course he would have made friends - it was G’raha. Who wouldn’t love him? 

She finds herself smiling slightly at the thought of his big, dopey grin as he looked upon whatever technology they must have devised to open those huge doors. The enthusiasm and praise he must have heaped onto those brilliant mad souls who had found a way to circumvent Allag’s infamously complex technology.

The smile grows a little wider at how he would charm his way into the hearts of those far-off individuals. How exasperating he would be as he bounded about in that distant future talking a malm a minute in that energetic way of his - he had slept quite long enough, thank you! She could picture him grinning cheekily at his minders easily enough.

Had he remembered her? Her heart sinks a little as her thoughts drift towards what he would think of her life. What would he think of the Bloody Banquet? Of her battles with Nidhogg and Zenos? Had she lived to a ripe old age? Did she have descendants? She shies away from those thoughts.

Once. Once upon a very long time ago, she might have thought either of those a possibility.

The Tumet had said that she had been born under a shower of stars - a blessing from Nhaama that she would be destined for greatness they had claimed.

She’s not sure if it was more of a curse than anything.

They had probably been thinking more along the lines of her becoming khagan of the Steppe - which had come true. Though they likely had not thought that she would win it for the Mol under an orphan’s name.

Everyone spoke of how tales of her deeds would be passed down for generations to come - but would G’raha remember _her_? The nights they had spent discussing anything and everything, from food to her atrocious penmanship. Would he remember how they had laughed after one of their many competitions or how she would pelt him with oranges or whatever fruit she had handy to get him to stop pouting at one of his many losses? Would he remember her real name?

Tears well up in her eyes that she stubbornly wills away as she burrows her face further into the pillow. What good would crying do? Time and a thousand battles had put malms between her and the girl he had known. How could she ask for him to remember her hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years in the future when she struggled now to remember the sound of his voice?

“He probably wouldn’t even recognize me,” she mumbles into the pillow. 

How was it that each and every one of her enemies had found their way back to her, but not the friends she had lost?

First Gaius van Baelsar had apparently not had the decency to die in an exploding castrum - but the years have changed him as much as they have changed her. They are not the same adventurer and legatus who had dueled on a rapidly descending elevator what feels like a century ago.

Then Zenos had risen from the grave as an Ascian’s fleshy overcoat, which almost didn’t quite count since it was a different monster in Garlean skin. But it was still Zenos - and that man terrifies her - Ascian overcoat or not.

She rolls over onto her back to stare at the ceiling and the slivers of light that make their way through the gaps in the closed windows. Well her concerns and bruised and battered heart could wait until the morrow. She had the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to find and apparently a whole new world to save.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventurer stories are always fascinating.

"You're pulling my leg!" G'raha exclaims indignantly but laughs at the affronted look on the adventurer’s face. She had just finished telling him - on his request - about her most recent adventure. The adventurer had obliged, and recounted the story of her acquaintance with one Hildibrand Helidor Maximillian Manderville - and everything that apparently went along with the man.

“It sounds ridiculous, but I swear to you that beyond all reason and insanity it's _true._ ” she huffs. He should not laugh so at her, but the tale she told was so unbelievably outlandish that it could be nothing but the truth.

“While your tale does stretch the limits of one’s imagination, I believe you,” G’raha manages to say through his laughter as she irritably shoves a forkful of her meal into her mouth. “An immunity to zombie powder sounds utterly preposterous, but given your claim that he has taught the undead manners, that is hardly the most ridiculous thing you’ve said all day. But did he _really_ wear the wedding dress himself?” 

The horrified look on her face at either the memory or the food that had gone down the wrong way, is one that will not soon leave his memory as she lets out a splutter and a cough. G’raha quickly pushes her cup towards her, which she takes as she clears her throat and wipes her mouth.

She thanks him as she looks up, eyes dewy and bright as she lets out another cough. 

“Yes. Yes he did.” she says weakly. "It worked though. The groom _was_ an impostor."

“Ah. Then I can only surmise that Master Hildibrand distorts the very fabric of reality around him to suit his deductions. That or he is in possession of some Allagan relic that grants him the physical durability of one of the heroes of eld.”

Her expression turns pensive.

“Nashu did say that the Inspector had fallen from Dalamud - so it may not be beyond the realm of possibility,” the dark-scaled Auri woman voices aloud. “Though I’m not sure if the Dalamud thing is actually true. I rightly shouldn't believe half o'the things that comes outta that girl’s mouth."

The star's most pre-eminent scholar on all things Allagan erupts into uncontrollable laughter, which brings a few curious eyes towards him and an adorable pout to the Auri girl’s face. 

It doesn’t quite feel like he is sitting across from a fabled eikon slayer. Wearing a plain blue tunic that matches her eyes and a feather hair ornament pinned neatly into her silver hair, she looks more like a village girl than a warrior. 

“Well I’ve told _you_ a story,” she states primly as he finally gets his giggles under control, gesturing at him with her fork. “Your turn.”

G’raha nods, taking a bite of his own meal as he ponders what tale he might have that could possibly hold a candle to the insanity that was Moxi Kahkol’s own. 

“Ah, I have just the tale!” he exclaims and his heart leaps at the way her eyes sparkle as she gives him her full attention. His life is nowhere near as exciting as her own, but Allagan history is rife with tales of adventure and derring-do. Surely a tale of Princess Salina and her loyal knight Desch would be suitably entertaining.

The afternoon passes in a glittering haze of laughter and merriment as they trade tales over their meal. G’raha cannot recall a time he has laughed as much as he has today. 

A stark contrast to his morning.

He had been frustrated with the lack of progress in his inability to simply throw wide the gates of the Crystal Tower and find the answers he was so desperately seeking. He had been set to rip all of his hair out from the roots, right up until the moment the Champion of Eorzea had stomped back into Saint Coinach’s Find. 

She had come in like a whirlwind, and G'raha had never been kidnapped before, but that had been what she had done.

He had scarcely time to blink, much less shout before she had thrown him over a chocobo. In what felt like seconds, he had found himself being tossed bodily into the shallows of Lake Silvertear, clothes and all. He remembers feeling distinctly surprised, given that she was a full head shorter than him.

She was a lot stronger than she looked. A fact he knew in a theoretical sense, but experiencing it was something else entirely.

"You. Stink." She had answered his spluttered demands for an explanation, punctuated with an expertly thrown soap bar between the eyes. It had been rather embarrassing to admit that she did indeed have a point.

Bathed and dressed in his freshly laundered and repaired clothes - by the Champion of Eorzea no less! - he had been promptly dragged into Mor Dhona proper and placed into an empty chair at the Seventh Heaven. The Xaela adventurer then thrust a frankly _enormous_ sandwich into his hands, and gave him a look that promised dire consequences if he did not start eating it.

While G'raha had intended to protest the treatment he had received, his stomach had taken that time to loudly remind him that he had not eaten in near two days. 

He ate the sandwich with no complaint.

Cid was the reason for this intervention, Moxi Kahkol had said rather flatly as he ate. Cid had been calling her to complain over linkpearl that G’raha had been near intolerably moody - or more specifically a chocobo’s arse, and just as smelly as one. Moodier than Skittles she had declared. Asking for clarification had her regaling him with a story about her fellow Free Company adventurer and his unruly chocobo. This had led to their current 'competition' one that G'raha was all too happy to lose. 

The Champion of Eorzea is not an eloquent wordsmith, but her stories are absolutely fascinating. 

G’raha frowns slightly at the small leather-bound journal she consults from time to time, checking and verifying her personal record of her adventures as she spoke. It is a worn and ragged thing with pages coming loose, and from what he can see of its contents it may very well be written in some sort of code.

One page flutters to the tavern floor and G’raha is quick to pick it up, despite her frantic scrabbling for the page.

The scribblings he sees on it are not any language he's familiar with.

“What script is this?” he asks. “Doman?” 

The girl flushes a brilliant red as she promptly snatches back the sheet.

“Captain Fhrubryt’s been teachin’ me Eorzean letters.” she mumbles embarrassedly as she stuffs the sheet back haphazardly into her journal.

“You can’t read?” he asks, his eyes wide with disbelief. Because if that was Eorzean script, then she certainly could not write. None of it had been remotely recognizable.

He had noticed that she did not peruse the tomes on Allagan history he had offered, and mostly just asked him questions about Allag that he happily spent hours explaining from late at night to the early hours of the morning to her. At the time he thought nothing of it, but perhaps her hesitance around his books had come from embarrassment. 

“I can read! Some.” she huffs defensively. “Writin’ is just hard.”

G’raha doesn’t point out that reading Eorzean books would be incredibly difficult if one did not recognize the alphabet. 

“Do you want me to teach you?” his mouth asks before his mind has even fully thought about it. Her startled expression is oddly endearing as she stares at him. 

“I-I mean, if you want, and if I can find the time to do so,” he blusters, struggling to fill the uncomfortable silence. 

“I - I’d like that,” she says softly. “I mean, Cap’s been so busy and all, and what with the expedition I haven’t seen the crew all tha’ often and... I mean if you have the time, I would greatly appreciate it.”

“Ah. Well. Um. Excellent!” he grins at her and catches himself staring as she smiles back at him.

She is _adorable_. It might be worth losing a few hours of sleep to help an adventurer with her letters if she smiles like that.

* * *

  
  


Yesui 'Moxi' Kahkol has no smiles for the Crystal Exarch, and a part of him is somehow - _that she does not recognize him means that his plan is working!_ \- disappointed in it. 

She remembered him. 

Had stammered out his name in excitement at the foot of the Crystal Tower, a spark in her eyes that had promptly faded upon the half-truth he told her. G'raha Tia had most certainly not been within Syrcus Tower when _he_ had opened the doors - a technicality that let the words flow easily from his tongue. 

_"Oh."_ She had said disappointedly, before relaying an abbreviated version of how G'raha Tia, a very dear friend of hers, had sealed himself away within. She had always been an animated, albeit easily distracted storyteller, her tail twisting and tracing intricate patterns behind her as she spoke. Never one for superfluous details in her reports, she spends a not significant amount of time describing him. _"_

_He's a Miqo'te, a Mystel, maybe about your height? Red hair with Allagan eyes! Umm wait, you might not know who the Allagans were or what Allagan eyes mean. But G'raha's eyes are red and they kinda glow like… rubies, but brighter and prettier than that. A bright red, Dalamud red!"_

That she spoke of the expedition with such warmth and regarded those days in Mor Dhona as fondly as he did - it stirred and twisted his heart into knots. 

He wants to tell her, to lay his soul bare and confess to _everything_. G’raha Tia had not the courage or the confidence to tell her how he felt, and the Crystal Exarch did not dare to. She had loved G'raha Tia - had even given that stupid, idiot boy her real name - but the Crystal Exarch was a stranger who had dragged her and her friends into another world in the hopes that she would save it.

He knows that she will not turn her back on the First, her good heart would never refuse to help those in need. Even should the salvation of the First result in her own death, she would walk to her grave with her head held high - and that is something that cannot be allowed.

Holminster Switch is a familiar nightmare to the people of the First, one that the Crystal Exarch has done his best to manage for the better part of a century. Yet despite the situation the Lakeland settlement has found itself in, he feels like this is - in some ways - a dream come true.

He stands shoulder to shoulder with the Warrior of Light, the Xaela adventurer he had met five years and several lifetimes ago. She's here and talking to him as a fellow comrade-in-arms as they prepare to enter the village. 

The dark scales that mark her nose and brow make her expression stern and serious as she asks him and Lyna questions about what they are heading into.

"I'll take point," she informs them gesturing towards her greatsword that she has planted in the ground. "What sort of village is Holminster?" 

"A farming village next to the forest. Timber and livestock are their main exports to the Crystarium."

"Any huntin' trails we can use?"

"Unfortunately game is scarce, and Holminster does not have soldiers of their own - leaving the safety of towns can make one easy pickings for sin eaters," Lyna explains, and the Warrior nods in acknowledgment. "It's just the main roads that are patrolled regularly, and even then there are still risks."

"Aight," she murmurs making final adjustments to her armour and hefting her weapon. "Main roads it is. We ain't a big group so we shan't get in the way of the 'vacuation. I'll keep their attention, so hit'em hard and bring’em down fast."

He insists - somewhat forcefully - on accompanying her and the twins, much to Lyna's surprise. It is a selfish and foolhardy request of his, but he had watched the Champion of Eorzea stride off into battle and been forced to wait on the sidelines once before. He would not suffer the _anxiety_ of being the one left behind again. Not this time.

He was not G’raha Tia, Student of Baldesion and would-be archer extraordinaire. He was the Crystal Exarch now - a superlative mage with the power of the Crystal Tower at his beck and call. The Exarch needed to be seen as a reliable and trusted ally. He was strong enough to stand at her side now - and if the reports were true, the Lightwarden of Lakeland might very well be in the village. If it worked, as he and greater minds had theorized, Moxi’s soul would be able to contain the corrupted light aether to an extent thanks to Hydaelyn's blessing. 

G'raha Tia remembers a small, silver-haired Auri woman who danced through a horde of Ixal with a pair of daggers and the Exarch had watched her through the crystal mirror as warrior, mage and healer all, but there is an enormous difference between witnessing Moxi fight and fighting alongside her.

He doesn’t know this woman at all, he thinks as she sets a breakneck pace through the woods. She challenges sin eater and ally both to the full extent of their abilities as she cuts and blasts her way down the paths. As aetheric constructs, carbuncles technically did not tire, but the Exarch would swear that Alphinaud’s is panting with exertion. 

Many records described the Warrior of Light as a living weapon, and while G'raha Tia did not doubt the tales of her accomplishments, the very idea that the small, pretty Xaela girl who couldn't write a letter to save her life, the girl that he played pranks on regularly being some sort of monster had seemed preposterous. 

The records are only half right.

She treats _herself_ like a weapon, flinging both body and blade into the fray. She rams herself into eaters to knock them off balance, leaving them open for himself and Alisaie to pepper with spells. She shrugs off claw strikes and spells like water and his heart nearly stops more than once as she rushes ahead, surrounding herself on all sides by eaters. The sin eaters are creatures of instinct, and they all recognize her as the greatest danger to them on the field. She keeps their eyes and teeth directed solely on her, never giving them a chance to consider going after remotely weaker prey - any wandering eyes promptly blinded with blasts of pitch black aether or her blade.

She is far too reckless with her life. And a part of him wants to shake her for it. Did she not see how important she was? Did she not see how panicked her companions were each time she charged an enemy?

He thanks whatever gods there might be in his imperfect summoning. Had he brought her alone like he had intended to, he is certain that she would have gotten herself grievously injured without someone to watch after her.

The twins are a force unto themselves, Alisaie charging headlong into the fray under her brother’s watchful eye. They make an excellent team, and the Exarch finds it a simple matter to fall in step with them. He impresses them in his adaptability and skills, adjusting his spells as needed towards the situation. When Alphinaud looked to be overwhelmed with keeping Moxi shielded, he stepped in with a curative spell, if the eaters were weakening, a giant fireball worked well enough to dispatch them all.

The Warrior slays the Lightwarden and absorbs the corrupted aether and does not instantly perish like so many other brave souls had. Just as planned. 

The Crystal Exarch takes a knee in front of the Xaela hero of the Source and thanks her for bringing back the night sky. 

The girl he knew would have stammered and flushed - bodily dragged him to his feet protesting this reverential treatment. The woman she is now - the hero of legend who has slain dragons and liberated nations- forces a smile and agrees to help.

She is exhausted - and he bids them all to return to the Crystarium for some much needed rest. Alone in the Ocular, he directs the focus of his mirror to her Pendants room. He expects, and is rewarded in his accuracy, to see Moxi walk into her room at the Pendants and then promptly drop face first onto her bed - armour still on. He will have to send someone to ensure she has a meal ready and waiting for her when she wakes.

At least that's one thing that hasn't changed over the years. She still has terrible sleeping habits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you think that the WoL/D ever tells the Scions about their other adventures? Like the seasonal events? Hildy quests?  
> Well Alisaie probably knows all about it, as she is one of the WoL/D's biggest fans. I bet she and G'raha have trivia competitions between them about who is the bigger fan/knows the most.
> 
> G'raha does have somewhat of an unfair advantage with my WoL though.

**Author's Note:**

> I have the attention span of a goldfish apparently, so have the conglomerate Shadowbringers + CT era romance/fluff/angst that led up to all of the other stuff as we bounce about the FFXIV timeline.


End file.
